Her leg throbbed and burned, reminding her that the doctor told her to take it easy. She rubbed her thigh and kept exploring, needing to find Alonzo’s secret lair. He lived in this house, or at least existed here, but there was no trace of him. Was that how he lived? She found a small apartment off the sunny verandah. It was attached to the house, but not really a part of it. She knew immediately it was created for someone working on the estate.

The moment she stepped inside, his scent enveloped her. This was where Alonzo lived. She took two steps inside and then stopped abruptly, her heart accelerating. There were steel bars on the inside of every window. A plate of steel covered the door to the apartment and every single door inside.

“Oh. My. God.” She whispered the words aloud, her hand going defensively to her throat. This was a prison. Not to keep out his enemies, but to keep him inside.

She found herself moving into the center of the room, holding her breath. He had a sound system, and it was an expensive one. Wide leather chairs. Everything in the small apartment was top quality and it was neat. Lived in, but neat. Still. She was forced to take a breath before she passed out.

The heavy metal bars made the apartment look like a prison. The steel on the doors was just plain scary. She could see the deep scratches and knew the leopard had tried to get out, time and time again.

His leopard was terrifying. For Alonzo to live with that. The knowledge that he had to barricade himself inside his home in order to sleep or his leopard could slip out from under his control and kill someone. She pressed fingers to her trembling lips. How could he live with such a monster? How had Fyodor survived his childhood, teenage years, his life, with such a monster slashing at him day and night?

“Now you know.”

She looked up to see Alonzo filling the doorway with his wide shoulders and tall frame. He took up the space, cutting off her retreat. A blue flame burned hot beneath the glacier ice of his eyes. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. For a moment she was ashamed of ferreting out his secret before he was ready to tell her, but he’d said to go exploring.

He moved first, gliding across the floor in silence, his hand closing over her wrist, fingers wrapping around bone so that he effectively shackled her to him. “I didn’t want you to see this until you got used to me.”

“Used to you?” she echoed. What was he talking about?

He tugged, taking her from the apartment and the evidence of his killer leopard. “Used to me. Committed to me.”

She scowled at him. “Throwin’ myself in front of a gun isn’t enough of a commitment for you?”